


Evenstar

by Mar_isu



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Enhances original, General, War of the Ring, Writing - Evocative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mar_isu/pseuds/Mar_isu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arwen sits alone at the feast and ponders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evenstar

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

**AN:** the feast here is the dinner in _Many Meetings_ , Felowship of the Ring.

[Bilbo] turned to Strider.  "Where have you been, my friend?  Why weren't you at the feast?  The Lady Arwen was there."

Strider looked down at Bilbo gravely.  "I know," he said.  "But often I must put my mirth aside.  Elladan and Elrohir have returned out of the Wild unlooked-for, and they had tidings that I wished to hear at once."  
\-------------  
And now, on with the story:

My beloved has returned from his journey for the wizard and my brothers from their hunts in the Wilds, yet I am alone under the canopy.  Upon the dais, Glorfindel and Mithrandir flank my father, pillars of white birch, slender and beautiful beside the towering oak that is Elrond Halfelven.  Yet I feel like the evenstar they name me, alone in the stillness of the dusk.  The Halfling who was hurt is up and about again, and that is the reason we feast tonight, but he does not sit close enough to talk.

There are those who would say that we should not be feasting with the Enemy practically staring at us.  Yes, even I feel his eye, a shadow of dread that makes me wish again for my beloved.  I say let us feast; let us dance in the moonlight and catch the stars that the Great Eye can only look upon.  Let us love and live, and die singing.  For we will all die, in time.  Long or short, our lives end.  Even mine.

My father sees too much of his brother in my beloved.  Elros the hasty, Elros the unthinking.  Elros the ages dead king of long drowned Numenor.  Aragorn is not Elros, though he be the last of that fading line, the only son of an only son.  My father would have me live, unfading, beyond the Seas, where the shadow cannot go.  Where it is always evening, so the Evenstar will shine all the brighter.  I must go when he leaves Middlearth, or fade with the night.

Yet my beloved and I, we are morning, not evening.  The start of a new age, not the last of the old.  In us are Elros and Elrond reunited, the line or Eärendil whole once more, human and elf-kind.  I gaze into my grandmother's mirror and see the sunrise in Ithilien, and the white tree of Gondor in flower.  Golden are the hours of eventide, but the morning will burn with a new heat.

Mornie utúlië (Darkness has come).  And I have made my choice.


End file.
